Task 1: Identify the basic elements in a game of your choice.

Figure 1.1: A screenshot of The Sims 4 gameplay. Image source: YouTube.com.

1. Name: The Sims 4 (Simulation Game)
2. Actions: Players choose and customize characters to play. The characters can be fully customized in many aspects, including names, genders, ages, personalities, clothes, ambitions, life goals, skills, and many more. Players control the character(s) from a third-person view by clicking on objects in the game and selecting actions from the provided options. Players in this game can also buy, sell, build, and decorate houses for their characters. Long story short, players live the lives of their characters in the game. (Figures 1.2–1.3)
3. Goals: No linear end goal! The goals vary depending on the players’ preferences. They can include, but are not limited to, achieving the characters’ life goals or dreams, making the characters rich and famous, getting the characters married and building a family, building and decorating fancy houses, and replicating cities, countries, or places in the game.
4. Rules: No fixed rules! Depending on the players, they can set their own rules to make their experiences more fun and challenging. For example, I might set a rule that my character must be rich and famous before reaching adulthood.
5. Objects: Fully customizable characters and houses, hundreds of functional and interactive objects (almost all the objects in the game), the characters’ biological needs, the progress of the characters’ life goals or achievements, and the characters’ wealth, to name but a few. (Figures 1.4–1.5)
6. Playspace: 3D, real-world-like landscapes and environments. (Figure 1.6)
7. Players: Single-player and multiplayer.

Figure 1.2: A screenshot of character customization in The Sims 4. Image source: YouTube.com.

Figure 1.3: A screenshot of house construction in The Sims 4. Image source: YouTube.com.

Figure 1.4: A screenshot of action options for controlling characters in The Sims 4. Image source: YouTube.com.

Figure 1.4: A screenshot of some functional and interactive objects in The Sims 4. Image source: YouTube.com.

Figure 1.5: A screenshot of a map/environment in The Sims 4. Image source: YouTube.com.

Task 2: Swap one element between two games

What if we could live the life (of our customized character) and run the city at the same time?

This idea of integrating the life simulation game (The Sims) into the city-building game (Cities: Skylines) has been my wish for a very long time. Personally, I love playing both The Sims and Cities: Skylines, depending on my mood and vibes at the time. One of my favorite game elements in The Sims is its ACTION, which allows us to personalize the character we want to play. I actually always customize my character to be the best representation of me in as many aspects as I can (and the game allows). By doing it this way, I can experience myself in the virtual world, trying different things that I may not have done before in real life or seeing myself (through the character) react to different situations that occur in the game. Sometimes, I have a feeling that The Sims can be a little preview or a trial-and-error version of my life in some ways because The Sims makes me feel like I’m a real citizen living in the (virtual) environment, where sometimes I would love to redesign, manage, or run it (but The Sims itself doesn’t have that ACTION like Cities: Skylines does).

For Cities: Skylines, I love the way that we can be someone who plans, designs, manages, builds, and runs a city. However, we can’t customize any character or see our identity in the game since Cities: Skylines doesn’t have that kind of ACTION (like The Sims does). In Cities: Skylines, we can freely choose the maps (completely blank or partially built) and start building cities on the map. We can do everything as the one who runs the country, e.g., determining the city’s layout, zoning areas, adjusting taxes, enforcing laws and policies, and so on. It might sound fun and easy, but if we’re complete beginners, we may ruin the city or go bankrupt within minutes after starting the game.

If we add the ACTION of running a city from Cities: Skylines into The Sims, I think players, including myself, will definitely spend more hours on it. My idea is that we just add this city-building action as an additional element of The Sims, for example, by adding this action to one of the jobs that the character can work in: the mayor position. So, the play experience of The Sims won’t change much since the added city-building action will function only when the character gets into the assigned position/job. By doing it this way, players will have more options for actions, goals, and objects, as well as more play space to play with. If players would like to play the original game elements of The Sims or the added city-building action, they are free to choose through their characters. If this integration happens in reality, we can LIVE the LIFE and RUN the CITY at the same time. The characters in The Sims can redesign, manage, and run their city, and at the same time, the city will no longer be administered by someone unidentified but by a fully customized and personalized character.

Task 3: Space of Possibility of a Childhood Game

When I was little, I used to play a game called “Ma-Roon-Chiang” (in Thai: มะรูนเชียง). It was a kids’ game from Thailand, and most times we played it on a dirt field or in the schoolyard. I thought it was plain and easy back then. Even so, it was not always the same. What happened could change based on how the players moved, how they reacted, and how they worked with the other kids (Figure 3.1).

Figure 3.1: A picture of children playing “Ma-Roon-Chiang (In Thai: มะรูนเชียง) Image source: BURIRAM WORLD.

• Goals: The runners want to pass the defenders and make it to the far end without getting tagged. The defenders want to stop them. They try to block the runners and tag them before the runners get to the end.
• Actions: Players may run, halt, turn, or pause until the right chance comes. They can dodge the defenders and also coordinate with teammates. The runners can call out “Chuen (In Thai: เชิญ)” which means “invite.” They use it to ask defenders to step aside or to let them move into the next area. Defenders stay on their own marked lines. They try to tag the runners as they come near.
• Objects: The game has only a few things in it. Most of what you work with are the lines you put on the ground. Those lines make the separate zones and the routes players follow. You can draw them with a stick, a piece of chalk, or even just a small mark in the dirt.
• Rules: Two teams are picked at the start. Then one group becomes the defenders. The other group acts as the runners and tries to get through the lines. The runners must stay inside the play zone. They also need to avoid getting tagged. The defenders stay in their own marked areas. They try to block the runners from passing through.
• Play-space: People often play this game outside, like on a dirt patch or a schoolyard. You mark lines on the ground to show where the action should stay. Those lines also split the area into separate parts. Depending on how big the open space is and what shape it has, the game can feel harder or easier.
• Space of possibility: Even with simple rules, the game still lets players choose a lot. A runner can pick to go fast or slow down. They can also wait for a teammate instead of moving right away. On top of that, they may change direction. They might even act in a way meant to pull the defenders off their plan. The defenders face choices too. They need to decide where to stand. They also have to pick the right time to move. So the range of outcomes does not come only from the rules. It comes from how goals, actions, objects, and the play space all meet each other during the match.

The diagram maps one moment when a runner approaches a defended line (Figure 3.2):

Figure 3.1: A diagram showing a moment when a runner approaches a defended line.

When I was a kid, I liked Ma-Roon-Chiang (In Thai: มะรูนเชียง) for one main reason. The game was not hard to learn. Still, each round felt a bit different. What people chose and how they reacted kept shifting the next turn.

Task 4: a real-time game vs. a turn-based game.

I picked Cities: Skylines for the real-time portion and Chess for the turn-based portion. As I watched, I paid attention to the game state shifts. Those shifts then made fresh options appear for the players. The two games are built in very different ways. Because of that, the same kind of move could open new paths in one game, but it would not do that in the other. I noted this in Figure 4.1.

Figure 4.1: Comparing the changing game states of Cities: Skylines and Chess (Generated by ChatGPT*).

When I look at the two game state logs, the “space of possibility” seems different in each game. In Figure 4.1, Cities: Skylines looks like it keeps shifting while you are still making choices. First, you begin with a blank map and a small pot of money. Then you lay down roads, mark zones, and sit back to see what happens next. While you do that, new homes show up. People move in. Streets get busier. You spend more money. At the same time, what the city wants starts to move too, like the level of need for services. For instance, if you set up a new residential zone, the population may rise. But that can also bring more traffic. It may also mean you must add schools, hospitals, power, and other basics. So, a single move can lead to several outcomes at once.

Chess in Figure 4.1 shows a clearer structure. At the start, both sides begin with every piece on its usual square. Each turn then forms a new board state. White plays first, then Black replies. Over time, both players bring more pieces toward the middle. When a piece is taken, the options for the other side shift right away. A single move can clear a path for another piece. It can also create a chance to win a capture. Sometimes it just leaves a piece where it can be hit. For these reasons, the “space of possibility” rises or drops based on where every piece sits.

I noticed the main parts of the two games work differently. In Cities: Skylines, you are building a city, and that drives what you choose. You deal with roads, places to build, public services, and the budget. You can try many options, but you cannot do everything at once since you run into limits. Chess feels different. The rules are the first thing you notice. Each piece can only move in its own way. Winning by checkmating the other king affects most moves. As the pieces shift across the board, what you can do next also changes.

This activity made one thing clear to me: the “space of possibility” is not fixed. It moves as other parts move too. Goals, actions, objects, and rules can all push against each other, and the play-space changes with them. In Cities: Skylines, more than one thing can change at the same time. I might be planning a move, but a problem can pop up in the middle of my choices. It can feel messy because causes and effects are not lined up neatly. In Chess, the shifts happen in a steady order. One turn follows the next. Because of that, I can usually see how what one player does leads to the next situation for the other player. Seeing both games next to each other helped me compare them. They both have the same basic ingredients, like goals, rules, objects, actions, and a play-space. Still, the way those pieces connect can lead to very different experiences when I play.

AI disclosure: The blog’s thumbnail and Figure 4.1 were created by generative AI (ChatGPT) to help build the visual layout. The analysis of the play and the written explanation are my own work.